Good-bye Blogger...Blog moves to JoeWessels.net

Report This! along with all previous posts have permanently moved to a new location. Now you can find the Blog and lots of other stuff at the newly revamped joewessels.net. You will be re-directed shortly (or click on the hyperlink). See you there!

Hours of Darkness

I spotted this sign recently at a park operated by Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. And I think it begs one important question: When would the pious and ever-righteous and all-knowing and extraordinarily-judgmental Pat Robertson re-open this park? Ever? In similar news, I like to watch TBN. Why? Probably for similar reasons I like what Elaine Pagels has to say. Last night TBN was having a movie infomercial. Sort of a rip-off of an E!-inspired show (they have a lot of shows that look a lot like secular network shows, but aren't), they were touting this new movie, "Time Changer," while sitting on what appeared to be a re-creation of the movie's set based on the movie clips they showed. What caught my eye and stopped my channel-flipping right smack on TBN this time was their talk of the movie's stars. What exactly have Hal Linden and Gavin McCloud been up to anyway? The formidable "Captain Barney Miller" and equally-amazing "Captain Merrill Stubing," respectively, have been making a movie that I would likely never see, apparently. Wow. These guys re-made "Back to the Future III," gave it an apparently overt Jesus-y message and put a police captain and the "Love Boat" sea captain in starring roles. According to the Internet Movie Database this movie was released in 2002. Where was I?

Comedy debut

Alrighty, get your tomatoes ready. The highly-anticipated, widely celebrated video of my comedy debut has been released and is posted on the 'Net. I am scared to let the world see it - really scared - though I was very happy with my performance that night and did get lots of laughs. Guess whoever sees that will be the ultimate judge of it, but here goes. Be relatively nice, but I'd like to get feedback - honest feedback. I would like to write more but I am working on a piece about the experience that will be in an upcoming issue of Cincinnati Magazine. I'll post here when that articles appears, but it'll likely be a few months. Also, keep in mind that at parts it's rather explicit. Don't watch it at work (or turn your speakers down) and you may want to keep the kids away. And it's worth noting that comedy is mostly made-up hyperbole and roman a clef. Any similarities to actual persons living or dead, places and events are coincidental and should not, in any way, be taken literally, personally or otherwise. Click here to see the video. And cock your arm back far to throw the tomatoes hard at your monitor screen.

Party on Wessels Avenue

Last evening as I was coming home from Bridgetown when I happened upon the street in Price Hill that bears my family's name. Don't believe it was named after any of my relatives (considering our clan immigrated in 1955), but the spelling is the same. So, as I had thought about doing many times before and this time I actually did, I stopped and took a couple pictures. And there was an assemblage of local kids hanging around and they wasted no time asking who I was, if I was a police officer, if I was with the news and just generally what the hell I was doing there. After answering their questions and explaining that my name was the same name that was on that sign, they were more relaxed and asked if I would take their picture. Antionetta (left, red coat) asked me if I would e-mail her the photo. I also corrected their pronunciation of the street's name. They had always called "Wezt-lells" or something like that. Now I think I helped them give it the true German American pronunciation.

Have fun in Indiana, Sid

For the past two nights we celebrated the Birth of Sid. Seems appropriate given the time of year. After all, he is quite possibly the only person I know who could - and has - pulled off three going away parties spanning two months and three days. We are assured this time, though, he is actually leaving. Dances-in-Suits, as we so affectionately call him, is the best-dressed young professional in all of Greater Cincinnati. Shockingly, at his going away party last night he was not wearing a suit nor a tie, opting instead of the shirt-under-a-sweater. Business casual has changed forever. No matter. When he does have a suit on there is never a crease or a wrinkle on that premium navy blue or black suit, powder blue button-down shirt and red power tie tied in a double-Windsor knot. And that's at 4 a.m., standing on Fountain Square. Others? Scruffy and worn from the long day and even longer night before. Sid? Dressed for a board meeting. It's amazing. Now we bid a fond farewell to Mr. D'Souza. He is leaving us for India, we think. Indiana? Bangor, Maine? No one's really sure, but what we hear it's hard or maybe even impossible to drive there. When he gets back he says he's going to business school. He won't say where. It is, apparently, none of our business. Seriously though, Sid D'Souza is going to be missed. The consummate gentleman, friend, confidant and professional, Sid has been a mainstay on the local young professionals scene long before I arrived back here in Cincinnati in 2003. He has to spare charisma, kindness, charm, a sense of humor, intellect, a stellar smile and a swooning entourage of endearing ladies, not to mention a collection of personally signed and autographed books authored by a Who's Who of local and national Fortune 500 CEOs who all wish they could be as suave as Sid (and they write it so inside the front flap). Plus, he as a superhero-like ability to wear full business attire even while swimming laps in the YMCA pool and simply amazes just about everyone he meets. Plus, he likes to tell people that he and I met in jail - which is true. And funny. I'll miss him and the energy he brings to the effort to keep Cincinnati relevant and hip for young professionals in the area. I have enjoyed our evenings running around Cincinnati, sharing some good laughs and good times. I enjoyed having him as a guest on the radio show this summer (listen to his interview), introducing him to Senor Bumblebee and running into him everywhere I went without him, bringing ubiquity to a whole new level and creating a if-Sid-is-not-at-the-party-then-we-are-at-the-wrong-party criteria to every local event. As one final parting gift to a good friend, here's smattering of photos taken at Sid's Going Away Party: Month II Part II. Good luck, my friend. We'll be waiting for the postcards.

I love(d) Fort Scott

Report This! along with all previous posts have permanently moved to a new location. Now you can find the Blog and lots of other stuff at the newly revamped joewessels.net. You will be re-directed shortly (or click on the hyperlink). See you there! This past weekend began a significant moment in the life of this Blogger. In reality it's something I have been prepared to see happen for many years, but somehow with some luck, it took 16 long years to really take place. Fort Scott Camps, where I attended as a kid - and loved so dearly - has been sold to be turned into a 950-home subdivision. The camp closed in 1989. This past weekend the Crosby Township Fire Department used the first building to be removed - the Girls' Lodge - as a practice burn to ready their firefighters for real fires. It was dramatic to watch - for anyone to watch - with the fire roaring to the sky, and smoke billowing and enveloping the fire trucks, firefighters and bystanders nearby. It was also heartbreaking to see the beginning to an end of such a big part of my life. With a pile of wood placed just inside the doorway of the old building with white siding and a green shingled roof with green-painted trim, right in the middle of a building where I went to at least one senior dance (and so clearly remember hearing Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me" for the first time, prompting me to go out and buy the 45), the firefighters poured gasoline on the stack and dropped a match. There the orange flames began and quickly grew higher and larger and hotter and spread inside this place full of memories. This place was also the place where perched on the hillside was a stone patio overlooking the Great Miami River. There I remembered I would look to see my best friend Alan's house on the hill opposite and feel some comfort when the inevitable homesickness of being at an overnight camp without Mom and Dad set in. I can't believe it's now that I am experiencing this loss. Until now nearly every building and the two swimming pools at the former camp remained untouched. The person who bought the camp from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati used it has his home, a sprawling 400-plus-acre ranch with buildings used for entertaining guests and storing old tractors, farm equipment and motorcycles and other various items he had collected. It's amazing to be there now, aside from the deterioration of the swimming pools and the grass growing out of the tennis courts, the place has actually been maintained. Buildings, for the most part, have received paint, the grass has been mowed and the doors and windows are still there. Some cabin names, until recently, still stood over cabin doorways. It's still virtually the same Fort Scott Camps that I remembered as a child. I could go on and on about the many, many positive memories and first experiences I had at that place - shooting a BB gun for the first time, hitting a bull's-eye in archery for the first time, riding horses through the vast wilderness, sleeping alone in the woods as the final trial for my naturalist badge, or learning to be an actor - or to act goofy - in a drama class that I so dearly loved (and won awards for my silliness and, I guess, skills). I learned to swim better there, too. Competing against the Girls' Camp in the Sunday Swim Meet, and doing not-so-badly that I could hold my head high as I came out of the pool - even if I hadn't won the race. Or those "Junior-Midget Dances". "Midgets" and "Juniors" were the names given to the youngest and second-youngest campers at Fort Scott, respectively. It was a pre-pubescent romp through the teen years at age eight - and I loved it - replete with Top 40 music and a deejay and dimmed lights and slow dancing and pretty girls. It was great, even if I was scared to death to ask any woman (ahem, girl) to dance with me. It was romantic, it was summer and it was my childhood. I still have a little Kinney Shoes shoebox (remember Kinney?) filled with mementos of my summers there. A green ribbon with the gold-stamped lettering "Fort Scott Camps, The Place to Be in '83". That's 1983, kiddies. My "Character Rating Card" that was my counselor's report card to my parents about my behavior while I was in his cabin. I always took pride in getting high marks there. I have copies of the hand-drawn map carefully outlining the trails and campsites in the Fort Scott forest. The famous "Grubers" spot - I can remember that camp site without even looking. I kept one bumper sticker, the ones for sale in the Fort Scott boys' canteen store that had in green letters with a big red heart, "I (heart) Fort Scott". You used to see them all around town on station wagons and mini vans and family cars. You could leave town and go to Columbus or Indianapolis and see them there, too. Or the legend of Pottinger, the mythic man who lived just beyond the camp's borders and hated so much when he found Fort Scott campers trespassing on his property that he'd load salt pellets in his shot gun and shoot campers in the butt if he could. It was enough to keep us scared from wandering off camp property, the logical intent of the legend for our counselors charged with our care, unrealized by our little imaginative minds. Counselors. I can remember my first. Brian O'Neil. Then came Michael Busic. Dennis Knippenberg. The names seem as fresh as those people were so bigger-than-life and so "old" when I was a kid. I'm now probably ten years older than they were then. Hard to imagine. Then there were those other legends of camp, those counselors who weren't your own, but they taught all the cool classes and became legends themselves. Tom Beiting. That name pops into my mind so readily, it's scary. His Indian powwows where he wore Native American dress and jumped over the heads of campers sitting around a camp fire from a darkened woods and then ran around the fire, jumping over it and chanting the way we all thought Indians might have chanted, all of us entertained and mystified by his presence. I think I'd ask him for his autograph if I saw him today. I kind of wish I had back then. "Stretch" - this tall guy. A great counselor. What was his real name? Did he even have a real name? He was just Stretch to us and that was just fine with him. Laura Beiting, Mary Ann Beiting. That whole Beiting family - they were legends. Of course, Laura, Miss Beiting. Had I only been a little older and she a little younger, a marriage proposal would've been in order. Those crushes when you're 10, 11, 12 years old are so funny. So many memories of a place that I was so terrified to go to my first year that my Mom cancelled at the last minute until I was more ready the next year. But even that next summer, when they had actually got me in the car and drove that five minutes to camp (I lived across the river and up the hill from camp), came the moment my parents walked away from the cabin and I still cried. My counselor saved me and told me to try playing with the other boys, which I did and forgot momentarily that I couldn't go and run into Mommy's arms. Then, when I got home two weeks later I laid in my bed and cried, begging my parents to take me back. I was in love, the first of many times my heart would be broken in my life. Not even the first time my heart would be broken as it was related to that camp. But it was life and it taught me about it. *** Within a half-hour the building was a smoldering pile of smoking gray and white ash, with two gray, now black smoke-stained chimneys standing on opposite ends, that patio still intact. The home of my friend - where someone else's family now lives - even more visible with the Winter's barren trees opening a clearer sight line from where I stood, a safe distance away. While it burned in it's blazing hot, orange brilliance, evoking this mixed-emotion of neat-o and profound sadness, in the bitter cold just feet away in safety from the comforting warmth of the smoldering building, I said a prayer. It was a prayer for the Church that once owned this great place and let it die despite the desperate cries of those who had built it, loved it and made it what it was. It was a prayer for all the bad decisions the Roman Catholic Church has made in the last 80 or so years, the ones that have not benefited anyone but themselves and have hurt thousands of people, some much more serious than the decision to close a summer camp. I have started to realize that in my life I will see lots of change. I guess when you hit your 30s you start to realize that not everything will last forever and that things do change. Mortality means change and that things come and go in life and many do not ever stay forever. The unexpected does happen. People let you down. Organizations and routines you count on change and sometimes get worse. Some get sweeter and better. People get greedy or maybe just don't see things the way you do, and you move on or they do, too. People and places come into your life at the right time and then leave before you realize they're gone, the impact already made, the mark left, the memory made. The good comes to fill in when the bad seems so heavy. And just the opposite sometimes, too. I wonder why it took me so long to realize this sometimes. But I think someone, somewhere, some Higher Power, let me realize it when they knew I'd be ready. This burning, tearing down of camp is happening when they knew I would be ready to let go. Doesn't make it any easier, though. But I can see that chapter, that passage now for what it's worth, for the good, the bad. I can see it for the doors the past 16 years that it opened and the experiences I might never have had if Fort Scott stayed open. I asked the firefighter heading up the practice burn how long it would be before they came and hauled away the remaining parts of the building and cleared the spot for the builders. "They'll just come with a bulldozer and spread it around and work it into the dirt," he said. Really, I thought. Like a spreading of the ashes of a dead person, forever making this building and the memories and positive experiences that happened in it part of the ground around it. Fitting, I thought. Very fitting. Perfect, even. The photos turned out great, something I'll be able to use for my portfolio as I build my career in journalism. One more time this place gave back to me I think, looking through the awesome shots on the little LCD screen on the back of my camera. I'm happy to know they'll be burning down more buildings there, and the firefighters have invited me back. It's neat to watch. Can't wait. More buildings that will be a part of the ground again. The next to burn? The place where I saw "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" for the first time. It'll be cold outside and hot near the building. I'll bring the hot chocolate and raise a toast to what once was before I watch it return to the ground.

Photos of Mark Mallory's Union Terminal Swearing In Ceremony

Tonight I headed over to Union Terminal to see a reenactment of today's earlier swearing-in ceremony for Cincinnati's new mayor, Mark Mallory. Filled with much more pomp and circumstance than the day's traditional Oath of Office ceremonies held this afternoon at City Hall (where also City Council members were sworn in), this was more a party than a ceremony, though there was much speech-giving and back-slapping. And I guess deservedly so. It's another side of the city that I don't think many get to (or maybe want to) see. That's why I'm here. I brought my camera to the occasion and snapped a few photos. Admittedly not my best work (my flash was on the fritz), but I think it still captures the feel of the night (and a lot of the Who's Who that were there). Enjoy. PHOTO CAPTIONS: In the first photo, Mayor Mallory was sworn in by his brother, the newly-re-elected William L. Mallory, Jr. In the lower photo a painted portrait of the new mayor is unveiled in front of the audience toward the end of the ceremony.

Shakespeare in Love again

I recently watched "Shakespeare in Love" again. It's one of my favorite movies, though it has been several years since I have watched it beginning to end. I was reminded once again at how wonderful - truly beauitfully written, acted (less Ben Affleck), directed and photographed- that movie really is. The ending though is so good, so touching, without being overly dribbly, that I thought I'd post the script here. I'm a person who tends to romanticize too much about the world, which is why maybe I like this ending so much. Whatever the reason I find I like it, hopefully you'll find your own.

    A gaggle of the QUEEN'S favoured courtiers wait by her
    carriage. WESSEX is hurrying down the exterior staircase
    as the QUEEN emerges from the theatre. During the
    following a general egress from the Auditorium is taking
    place, including some of the actors crowding to see her
    off. WESSEX bows out of breath.

                           WESSEX
                 Your Majesty!

                           QUEEN
                 Why, Lord Wessex! Lost your wife so
              soon?

                           WESSEX
                 Indeed I am a bride short. How is this
              to end?

    VIOLA has come out of the theatre, amongst some of the
    other players. The QUEEN catches her eye.

                           QUEEN
                 As stories must when love's
              denied--with tears and a journey. Those
              whom God has joined in marriage, not
              even I can put asunder.

                           QUEEN (CONT'D)
                     (she turns to VIOLA)
              Lord Wessex, as I foretold, has lost
              his wife in the play- house--go make
              your farewell and send her out. It's
              time to settle accounts.
                  (to WESSEX)
              How much was the wager?

                           WESSEX
                 Fifty shillings.
                  (the QUEEN gives him a look)
              Pounds.

                           QUEEN
                 Give it to Master Kent. He will see it
              rightfully home. WESSEX gives his
              purse to VIOLA.

                           QUEEN (CONT'D)
                     (to VIOLA)
              And tell Shakespeare something more
              cheerful next time for Twelfth Night.

    The QUEEN proceeds towards her carriage. There is an
    enormous puddle between her and her carriage. The QUEEN
    hesitates for a fraction and then marches through the
    puddle as cloaks descend upon it.

                           QUEEN (CONT'D)
                 Too late, too late.

    She splashes her way into her carriage, which departs.

       INT. THE CURTAIN THEATRE. STAGE. DAY.

                           WILL
                     (heartbroken, testing her
                   name)
              My Lady Wessex?

    VIOLA nods, heartbroken too. For a long moment they
    cannot say anything to each other. The she holds up
    Wessex's purse.

                           VIOLA
                 A hired player no longer. Fifty
              pounds, Will, for the poet of true
              love.

                           WILL
                 I am done with theatre. The playhouse
              is for dreamers. Look where the dream
              has brought us.

                           VIOLA
                 It was we ourselves did that. And for
              my life to come I would not have it
              otherwise.

                           WILL
                 I have hurt you and I am sorry for it.

                           VIOLA
                 If my hurt is to be that you will
              write no more, then I shall be the
              sorrier.

    WILL looks at her.

                           VIOLA (CONT'D)
                 The Queen commands a comedy, Will for
              Twelfth Night.

                           WILL
                     (harshly)
              A comedy! What will my hero be but the
              saddest wretch in the kingdom, sick
              with love?

                           VIOLA
                 An excellent beginning
                  (a beat)
              Let him be…a duke. And your heroine?

                           WILL
                     (bitterly)
              Sold in marriage and half way to
              America.

                           VIOLA
                     (adjusting)
              At sea, then--a voyage to a new
              world?…she lands upon a vast and empty
              shore. She is brought to the
              duke…Orsino.

                           WILL
                     (despite himself)
              Orsino…good name

                           VIOLA
                 But fearful of her virtue, she comes
              to him dressed as a boy

                           WILL
                     (Catching it)
              and thus unable to declare her love

    Pause. They look at each other. Suddenly the conversation
    seems to be about them.

                           VIOLA
                 But all ends well.

                           WILL
                 How does it?

                           VIOLA
                 I don't know. It's a mystery

    WILL half smiles. Then he's serious. They look deeply at
    each other…and rush into each other's arm.

                           WILL (CONT'D)
                 You will never age for me, nor fade,
              nor die.

                           VIOLA
                 Nor you for me.

                           WILL
                 Good bye, my love, a thousand times
              good bye.

                           VIOLA
                 Write me well.

    She kisses him with finality. Then turns and runs from
    him. WILL watches as she goes.

       INT. WILL'S ROOM. DAY.

    A blank page. A hand is writing: TWELFTH NIGHT. We see
    WILL sitting at his table.

                           WILL (VO)
                 My story starts at sea…a perilous
              voyage to an unknown land…a shipwreck

       EXT. UNDERWATER. DAY.

    Two figures plunge into the water

                           WILL (VO)
                 the wild waters roar and heave…the
              brave vessel is dashed all to pieces,
              and all the helpless souls within her
              drowned

       INT. WILL'S ROOM. DAY.

    WILL at his table writing

                           WILL (VO)
                 all save one … a lady

       EXT. UNDERWATER. DAY.

    VIOLA in the water

                           WILL (VO)
                 whose soul is greater than the ocean …
              and her spirit stronger than the sea's
              embrace … not for her watery end, but
              a new life beginning on a stranger
              shore

       EXT. BEACH. DAY.

    VIOLA is walking up a vast and empty beach ….

                           WILL (VO CONTINUED)
                 It will be a love story … for she will
              be my heroine for all time

       INT. WILL'S ROOM. DAY.

    WILL looks up from the table.

                           WILL (VO CONTINUED)
                 and her name will be … Viola.

    He looks down at the paper, and writes: "Viola" Then:
    "What country friends is this?"

       EXT. BEACH. DAY.

    DISSOLVE slowly to VIOLA, walking away up the beach
    towards her brave new world.

                             THE END

Free comedy from a poor comic

I'm launching my stand-up comedy career and this is your big opportunity to laugh at me - not with me. And in public. In front of a live audience. Within throwing distance, if you wanna. Me, along with about 12 to 15 other budding comics - all enrolled in Jeff Jena's "Stand-Up Comedy Basic Training" course at the Funnybone on the Levee - will do a two-hour show of six to eight minute sets each in front of a live audience. Who's the live audience? You. And the best part? It's absolutely free. And if you park at Sawyer Point and walk across the Purple People Bridge - you won't even have to pay for parking. Drink minimums? Bleh - not even being enforced. However, the bar will be open and so will the kitchen. So you can eat and drink to your heart's content. Get drunk, if you'd like - just so you can tolerate us all. Whatever it takes. Just come. So bring the kiddies, bring Mom, bring Dad and Grandma can come, too. And watch me and a bunch of others try out all their original material for the very first time. Did I mention it was free? In all honesty, though, it's a big night for all of us. I am nervous even just thinking and writing about it. Typically the places fills up, so get there early. Tickets are available the night of the show at the Funnybone on the Levee box office located, believe it or not, at Newport on the Levee. Box office opens at 7 p.m. and the approximately two-hour show begins at 7:30 p.m. Those who have been in the past say it is one of the best, raw comedy shows around as comics trying to see if they have the skills necessary or not throw out their very best stuff. Hope you can make it. If you decide to come... WHEN: Wednesday, December 7, 2005 7 p.m. Doors open 7:30 p.m. Show begins WHERE: Funnybone-on-the-Levee, Newport on the Levee, Newport, Kentucky TICKETS: Free, at the door. Tell attendant you're there to see me, Joe Wessels. No limit. PARKING: $4 at the Levee Free at Sawyer Point in Cincinnati. Five-minute walk over Purple People Bridge. WHAT: Comedy students have their first stab at performing in front of a live audience, each doing six to eight minute sets FOOD: Bar open and kitchen open night of the show. WHY: Support local comedy and see a good, free show.

Scenes from the Hamilton County Board of Elections

No doubt about it. It was an interesting night to be at the Board of Elections. On an evening when it appears the shape and form of city government was changing right before our very eyes, it was neat to be at the epicenter of all the celebrating and tears and cheering and back slapping and giant bear hugs and happy disbelief among the first-time winners. Leslie Ghiz saw me as she walked into the press room. I could not help myself and grinned from ear-to-ear. I was so happy for her and we gave each other a big hug and a kiss - not because I was rooting for her necessarily. It was just the moment, and journalist or not - you just feel happy for people who are just so rightfully happy for themselves. It was like few things I have experienced before - and never at the Board of Elections. You could have sliced the good karma in the room and served it up to outsiders like pumpkin pie. Reporters, print and television alike, chatted among themselves and into TV cameras about how a new day seemed to be dawning in Cincinnati politics. Then you look around the room and see the new faces hugging the incumbents, then they shift quickly and start talking business with serious looks on their faces - staring fervently right into each others eyes, a glaze fixed on the future. You couldn't help but feel a little hopeful. There was a sense and chatter about how things look like they are going to be different than they have been in my memory and quite possibly the memory of many people in the room (I didn't get around to asking Jim Tarbell - he'd know for sure). A new mayor, four new faces on City Council, even a radically different Cincinnati Public Schools school board. Wow. It's going to be interesting to see what happens next. [I took photos of part of the evening and recorded audio for Friday's Cincinnati Advance Radio. We'll be talking about the outcome of Tuesday's election. Please tune in.]